With the Queen Vic being one of the most notorious pubs in the country, it means being a landlord there comes with even more pressure. For Alfie Moon, who ran it for many years on our screens, it’s more important now than ever.

Shane Richie, who played Alfie Moon for nearly ten years over three different periods, joined Clive on the Clive Holland show for the grand re-opening of Fix Radio’s pub, The Finger Inn! Clive started out by asking him how good it will be back to the pub today:

“I've not had a drink since I was touring a year ago! I'm not a big drinker at home, I'll go out and have a drink [though]

“It's a part of me that is excited just to go sit somewhere and just see strange faces, and not have to wear a mask. Hopefully we get the nice weather and just have a little sneaky half a lager with some friends of mine.

“I don't know if I'm going to get absolutely trollied or just sit there and just sit there just sip one drink for a few hours just to be around people. That is a strange conundrum right now.”

Clive went on to ask Shane about playing Alfie Moon and the responsibility that came with it, where Shane even told us a little bit about what the actors did behind the bar…

“When your when character runs the Queen Vic, you're in practically every episode because, back then, every story would start or stop or somehow involve the Queen Vic, and the Queen Vic was another character.

“Someone died? Let's all meet the Queen Vic. Someone’s getting married? Let’s all meet at the Queen Vic. Someone’s having a row? Let's meet at the Queen Vic. So even if it wasn't my storyline I think people were getting sick of seeing me.

“You do work hard even if you're just in the background pulling pints. You got to be there all day. But I loved it. I loved it. A lot of people asked me about if there was real booze in the pump, but it was alcohol free lager. What me and Jessie [Wallace] found out very early though on is that some of the optics were real and it was a purely by accident.

There was one bottle [behind the bar] and it had like a cherry rum and sometimes between scenes, we’d be getting bored and Shaun Williamson who played Barry would go, ‘Oi Shane, give us a bit of that!’, and we’d have a little sip of cherry brandy!”

He went on to say though, that he doesn’t even believe being able to go back to the pub is about drinking, but instead thinks it’s more about just being in people’s company again:

“I don't even think it's about drinking. I think it's just about human contact. I think even people who are nondrinkers will just be happy to sit and have a soft drink and just be around people. I think it's going to be more about that than the actual alcohol intake from being honest.”

You can catch more interviews with celebrities, industry professionals and tradespeople as well as some great tunes on the Clive Holland Show, Monday – Thursday between 2-4pm.

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